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Collierville First Baptist Church
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A few years ago, the Barna Research Organization conducted a national survey among a wide variety of people. They asked one question.
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If you could ask God any question,
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and you knew absolutely for sure that He would give you an answer, what would you ask Him?
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The number one question, if they tabulated the results, was this.
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Why does God allow pain and suffering in the world?
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The world is broken.
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Greed, poverty, abuse, injustice, jealousy, anti-Semitism, racism, and every possible manifestation of man's inhumanity to man ruthlessly rears its head on a regular basis.
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We see senseless murders.
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We see acts of terrorism.
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We see wars and rumors of wars. We see natural disasters.
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Despite our modern medical technology, thousands of people die every year from cancer,
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from heart attacks, from diabetes, from stroke, from infections,
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bizarre ideologies ripped to shreds the traditional family that the Bible speaks about. This morning, I'm going to preach a message to you that is so important.
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It's a message that is relevant to everyone in this room and everyone watching live stream.
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The message is entitled, "How do I live in a broken world?"
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Take your Bible and turn to Romans chapter 8.
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Romans chapter 8, we continue through this great chapter of the Bible.
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We're going to look today at verses 18 to 27, living in a broken world.
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I'll be sharing three crucial keys that will help you, whether you're a teenager, whether you're a child, whether you're an adult, whether you're a senior adult, whatever your station in life, it will help you to live in this broken, messed up world
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and to glorify God in the process, by the way.
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The truth that permeates this passage is one that you must absorb and adopt
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because it guides everything that we want to talk about today. Here's that truth.
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It's hard now, but the best is yet to come.
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Hey, listen, as I go through this sermon, I'll be saying this about three times. Every time I say it's hard now, I want you without me prompting you at all. I want you to say the best is yet to come. All right, so let's practice.
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It's hard now.
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Do you believe that? I believe that with all my heart. You know why I believe it? Because it's in the Bible.
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This is not man's opinion. It's in the Word of God.
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Okay, here's our first key if we're going to live in a broken world. Number one, develop the right perspective.
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In Romans chapter 8, verse 18, Paul wrote, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
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Now, to set the stage for verse 18 and what's following, let's look back at verses 16 and 17. Look at verse 16. "The Spirit Himself," that's the Holy Spirit,
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"testifies with our Spirit that we are children of God."
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Listen, the Holy Spirit's ministry in your life is to let you know with absolute certainty that you're a child of God, that you're saved, and that you're on the way to heaven when you die.
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And then verse 17, "And if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him." Now, there are two words that dominate our entire passage today.
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It's suffering and glory.
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Now, here's what the Bible teaches here in verse 17.
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It says that if you're a born-again believer and you're living in a broken world, which you are,
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you will encounter suffering in your life.
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You can't dodge it, you can't get away from it, but you will encounter suffering in your life.
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Now, we suffer with Him according to the Scripture here, so that we may also be glorified with Him. There's the two words, glory and suffering.
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We encounter suffering in our lives so that we may live with Jesus forever,
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that we might be glorified with Him.
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Now, the contrast between the present and the future is summed up in these two words, suffering and glory.
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They're joined together, they're welded together, and you cannot rip them apart.
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There is no glory without suffering,
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and there's no suffering for a believer without glory.
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They're welded together.
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Now, keep this in mind.
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Some suffering in our lives is self-inflicted,
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because we do things that are out of the will of God.
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So, some suffering is self-inflicted. Some is due to our commitment to the Lord Jesus. We love Him, we serve Him, we share the gospel with people, we take a stand on biblical values in the biblical worldview, and as a result, we become the target of the enemy.
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We become the target of a world that's gone mad.
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So, some suffering is self-inflicted.
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Some suffering that we experience is because we take a stand for Jesus and His Word and His truth.
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But still, there's another kind of suffering, and that suffering is a result of simply living in a broken world. Sometimes you don't have to do anything to suffer. You just live in a broken world,
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and things happen in a broken world. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people in a broken world.
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And sometimes we become the target of living in a broken world.
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Now, Jesus shared with His disciples just before He was crucified a very important truth. They're in the upper room,
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and He's preparing them to live their lives without a face-to-face relationship with Him.
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And in John 16.33, here's what He said to His disciples. "The men who would carry His message and His kingdom forward after He ascended to heaven, He said, "I have these things I've spoken to you, so that in me you may have peace.
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And in the world you have tribulation,
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problems, suffering, difficulties. But take courage, I have overcome the world."
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I can't imagine how that must have blessed those disciples after Jesus ascended back to heaven,
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to encounter suffering because they live for Christ, they preach the gospel, they took stands on biblical worldviews, and for Jesus to say, "In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world." It must have absolutely thrilled their souls.
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Now that we have that fact settled, let's turn our attention to verse 18. Look at verse 18.
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"For I consider."
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Now it's interesting that Paul said this. This refers to reaching a settled conclusion based on a careful study and reasoning.
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Paul strongly affirms that any suffering that we encounter in this broken world is a small price to pay for the glory we will experience with the Lord Jesus and His kingdom for all eternity.
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It's almost like a mathematical term here.
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So he added it all up,
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and if anybody as a believer suffered for their faith, Paul did.
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Shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, he encountered incredible difficulties because he was a follower of Christ and he stood for Christ.
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And he added it all up, all that he went through, and then he compared it to what it must be like to be in heaven with Jesus in a perfect world and living in the glory of Christ that we just sang about for all of eternity. And he said, I'll tell you what, there is no comparison,
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none whatsoever. When he wrote to the Corinthians, here's what he said to them in verses 17 and 18 of 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Listen, Paul wrote, "For momentary light affliction
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is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
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While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." It's like Paul had a set of scales and he put all of the suffering of this life on one side.
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And then he put all the glory of the kingdom of God on the other side. And here's what happened.
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On the side where the glory of God was, it just went way down because the weight of glory is far greater than any suffering we will ever face in this life. I want you to know that no matter what price you might have to pay in the way of suffering, it's nothing compared to the glory of being with Jesus forever.
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Now, to develop the right perspective,
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you must make the same calculation that Paul did in verse 18. Are you willing to do that today? Are you willing to make that same calculation?
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I hope and pray that you will, because you'll never be able to live with success bringing glory and honor to Christ in a broken world if you don't make this same calculation,
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if you don't develop this same perspective.
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Look at verse 19.
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"For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." Now, one thing you'll notice in our text today is that the creation, the creative world,
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and the believer, we're in lockstep.
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And what happens to the believer happens to the creative world. And what happens to the creative world happens to the believer.
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Notice what he says here.
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"For the anxious longing of the creation
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waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." Now, there are three facts about the world I want you to understand today.
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This world was created by God.
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Now, in this church, we do not believe in evolution.
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We believe that the sovereign hand of God created everything, everything.
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The implication for us as believers is that this world has value because God created it. Therefore, we should be good stewards of the world in which we live.
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I never will forget one time, I hope I don't embarrass my kids, but they were real little. When we went to New Orleans Seminary,
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Heather was five and Zach was two.
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And I remember we were going to the church one day
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and I was preaching in a little country church and I don't know if it was Heather or Zach. It may have been Darlene for all I know. Somebody threw paper out the window and I saw it.
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And I pulled over and I backed up.
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And I made whoever it was go out and pick up that paper.
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I'm trying to teach them a principle
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that God created the world
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and we are stewards of the world that God created
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and we ought to take care of it.
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Is there anything as ugly as driving down the road and seeing a spontaneous garbage dump that somebody has made on the side of the road?
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The world was created by God. This world is not what it was created to be. Second thing I want you to know. Adam sinned against God.
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As a result, brokenness was introduced into God's perfect world. God created a perfect world where there was no death, there was no disease, there was no sorrow, there was no sickness. It was a perfect world that God created.
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And then when Adam and Eve sinned against God and God put the onus upon Adam and when Adam sinned, as a result, brokenness was introduced into God's perfect world. In Genesis chapter 3 verse 17 and 18, listen to what God says.
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Then to Adam he said,
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"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
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and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it,
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cursed is the ground because of you."
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Cursed is creation because of you. Cursed is a world because of you. "In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field."
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Now, the one thing I want you to understand is that this world that we live in is a cursed world at this time. It's a cursed world.
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But I want you to know the third thing about the world, the world will one day be renewed.
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That's a promise from God.
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The redemption of our bodies that is mentioned here in verse 19 refers to the resurrection of our bodies when Christ comes again. Now, look at this, anxious longing. Look at that word. "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God."
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Now, this vivid expression suggests that in the world that we live in, in a broken world, sometimes, not all times, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a believer and a nonbeliever.
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And the creation is anxiously longing, and the picture here of being on your tiptoes and straining your neck forward, looking for what's coming, looking just over the horizon to what's coming soon.
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And that's what creation is doing.
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Now, the Jewish people were familiar with God's promise of a redeemed world.
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In Isaiah chapter 65, verse 17, the prophet Isaiah wrote, "For behold, I create new," writing for God, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind."
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So Isaiah, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, took God's Word and reminded the people of his day that one day God is going to take a broken world, and he's going to make a perfect world out of it. God's going to take a broken world, and he's going to make it like the Garden of Eden again, like paradise once again.
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In Isaiah 35, 1 through 2, Isaiah wrote, "The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
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and the arabah will rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon, they will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.
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So Isaiah prophesies that one day this broken world is going to become a perfect world once again.
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Now notice in verse 19 again, "For the anxious longer the creation waits eagerly for what?
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For the revealing of the sons of God."
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Now at the appointed time,
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God will make sure that everybody in creation knows who's a child of God and who's not a child of God. You say, "Pastor, when will that happen?" Well in Colossians 3, verse 4, the Bible says, "When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also, you as believers, will be revealed with him in glory."
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Now developing the right perspective for living in a broken world is absolutely essential.
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It's the first key to living in a broken world. Do you have the right perspective?
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Have you calculated like Paul did and you put in the measure here the glory of God and all the suffering that you'll go through in your life, have you discovered like Paul that the suffering of God, the glory of God is far greater than anything you will ever suffer in your life?
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You got to develop the right perspective if you're going to live in a broken world. Hey, it's hard now, but... Oh my goodness.
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That's horrible. Let's do that again.
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Hey, it's hard now, but...
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That's better. Good job. Here's our second key. Key number two.
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Look forward to redemption.
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Look forward to redemption.
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Look forward to the redemption of creation. Look in verses 20 and 21 of Romans chapter 8.
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"For the creation was subjected to futility,
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not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption and to the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
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Now, the Bible says the creation was subjected to futility by whom?
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By God.
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Not by Adam, but by God.
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Now, the aris tense of the verb here, the past tense, looks to a single occasion.
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It goes all the way back to when Adam and Eve sinned against God.
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Before Adam sinned, no weeds or poisonous plants and no thorns or thistles or anything else existed that could cause mankind misery.
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I never would forget my granddaddy was a farmer.
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And he had a patch of soybeans.
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And I'm telling you, those things were pretty.
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They were up about, I guess, about mid-thigh level.
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And he came to me one day and we were in the pickup. He said, "Chuck, we've got to go to this soybean patch."
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And he said, here's what he said,
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"That soybean patch is full of cockaburs."
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Now, you probably don't know what a cockaburra is.
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But it's a green plant that is a weed and it looks like a soybean plant.
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And here's what he said. "We have got to go through every row and we've got to take every cockaburra and we've got to pull it up by its root and throw it in the middle."
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And he made sure that I understand what a cockaburra looked like as opposed to a soybean plant, because he didn't want me to destroy his soybean plants.
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And so sure enough, we did.
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And when we got through, as God is my witness,
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my hands were green for a week. We didn't have any gloves on. They were green for a week. I didn't think I was ever going to get that green off my hand.
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But I'm going to tell you what, those cockaburs are a result of Adam and Eve choosing their will over God's will and God allowing a perfect world to become a broken world full of thistles and thorns and weeds and poison ivy and all kinds of stuff.
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God's perfect world became a broken world. Futility carries the idea of being without success.
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In spite of God's curse on the world today, the creation.
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We still see much of the beauty grandeur and benefits of God's creation.
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We see that flowers are still beautiful.
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We see that mountains are still majestic.
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That forests are still full of life.
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That the stars are still beautiful and awesome.
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That food still brings nourishment to our bodies. That water still refreshes and sustains life.
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God's gracious provision for mankind in a broken world is still a very real thing and we can praise God for that.
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The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to insert another important word here.
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It's in verse 21.
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That the creation itself, in hope, verse 20, that the creation itself also be set free from its slavery to corruption and to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Hope. That's a wonderful word, isn't it? When you hear hope in the midst of what we're studying today, it's like a breath of fresh air. Hope.
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God's curse on creation is not permanent. It's not.
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One day, when the created order will be set free from its bondage to decay and freed from corruption, it will share, the creation will share in the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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When we are glorified in His kingdom,
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God is going to create new heavens and a new earth. The Bible talks about the day is coming when a new heaven and new earth will be in place.
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Revelation 21.1, 2 Peter 3.13. And they will take their place with the children of God in the perfect freedom of a sinless universe. That day is coming. And I believe it's coming sooner than we might think. In Romans 8.22, Paul wrote, "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers
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pains of childbirth together until now."
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In verses 22 to 27 of this great chapter,
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we find the word grown, G-R-O-A-N.
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Grown. It's repeated three times.
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And yet it is found nowhere else in this letter.
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And it's only found, this word is only found six more times in the entire New Testament.
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The interesting thing that this word grown, G-R-O-A-N, not G-R-O-W-N, but G-R-O-A-N,
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is applied to three different objects in these verses, to creation, to believers, and to the Holy Spirit Himself.
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Currently, the entire creation is in travail.
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As in childbirth, the pain is not meaningless.
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A lady begins to have those pains, those birth pains, she goes to the hospital, and the pain is very real.
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And by the way, let me say this.
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Paul in no way is minimizing the suffering that we experience in this broken world. But what he's doing, he is maximizing the glory that we have in Christ Jesus for all of eternity.
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So the universe in travail and the creation is groaning, anxiously looking forward to its redemption and renewal.
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Remember, that anxious longing, it's like all of creation's on its tiptoes. It's craning its neck forward, looking over the horizon for the day when the Lord Jesus comes.
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And all of creation is redeemed, and this broken world becomes a perfect world once again.
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Now, all of this is tied to the redemption of the Christian's body, the resurrection of believers' bodies.
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So now we've looked forward to the redemption of creation. Now, let's look at the redemption of Christians. Look at verse 23.
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"And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit,
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even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."
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Now, not only does creation groan, but also we as believers groan, G-R-O-A-N. We groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption, for the completion of our salvation.
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You see, the moment you believed in Jesus, you were justified before God. Theologians call that justification.
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And now, as you live out your life in a broken world, this is called sanctification.
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And then one day, the Bible says that you will experience as a believer glorification. You will see Jesus, and you will become like him in every way. Oh my goodness. That's glorification.
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And so the Bible says that we're waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, the resurrection of our bodies. And when will your body be resurrected as believers when Christ comes?
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Likewise, we as believers are inwardly groaning as we anticipate this final phase of our salvation.
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The Holy Spirit's work in us and through us is a type of what Paul calls here spiritual first fruits.
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Now, these first fruits are a foretaste of the glory that we have in Christ Jesus, a glory that awaits us in heaven and Christ's perfect kingdom when he comes.
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When our corrupted and mortal bodies are exchanged for ones that are incorruptible and immortal, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 4, "For indeed, while we are in this tent, this body, we groan, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life." I love that statement.
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So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Philippians 3, verse 20 and 21, Paul wrote, "For our citizenship is in heaven,
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from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
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who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has, even to subject all things to Himself."
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Now, listen, in this body that we have now, I found that as an older I get, the more I groan when I stand up. I groan because things hurt me that did not hurt me before.
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But I'm not talking about that kind of groaning.
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I'm talking about a spiritual kind of groaning that we have as believers. We look forward. We look forward to the day that Jesus comes. We look forward to seeing our Lord face to face.
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We look forward to being made like Christ, to having glorified bodies,
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whereby we don't have to groan when we stand up or when we sit down.
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Look at Romans 8, 24 and 25, "For in hope," by the way, the word "hope" in the Greek language refers to a confident expectation.
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"For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope,
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for who hopes for what he already sees?
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But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Now let me say this. We are not saved by hope.
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We are not saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone.
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We're not saved by hope, but our salvation is characterized by hope, by a confident expectation in the fact that God will keep every promise he's ever made to you. Promises for this life and promises for your next life with him in the kingdom.
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Now listen, endurance is essential as we live out our lives in the broken world. Notice the last part of verse 25.
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"But if we hope for what we do not see," and we don't see it yet, right?
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I mean, I can read the Bible and I can see what heaven is going to be like, what the kingdom is going to be like, some of the blessings that will be ours, but I can't see it all. But I believe every bit of it. Why? Because it's in the Word of God.
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"But if we hope for what we do not see," look at this, "with perseverance, with endurance, we wait eagerly for it."
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Let me say, if you're going to live out your life in a broken world,
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you've got to endure. You've got to learn to endure. You've got to learn to persevere, to keep on keeping on, to keep your eyes on Christ. Stay on your tiptoes like creation, talks about creation. Down your tiptoes, crane your neck toward what's coming over the horizon because it's coming, I promise you.
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John MacArthur said, I quote, "Our salvation was planned by God in ages past,
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bestowed in the present, and is now characterized by hope for its future completion.
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The believer's hope is not based on wishful thinking or probability, but on the integrity of the clear promises of the Lord.
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In this life, we cannot expect to experience the reality of our glorification, but only the hope of it.
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But since the believer's hope is based on God's promise,
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the completion of his salvation is more certain by far than anything he can see with his eyes."
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I like that. So how do we live in a broken world?
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There are three keys.
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Key number one, develop the right perspective.
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Key number two, look forward to redemption.
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Hey, look, it's hard now, but...
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Hey, good, good job. The best is yet to come. So here's our third key. Number three, pray with genuine confidence. Look, if you're going to live out your life in a broken world, you better develop a strong prayer life, right?
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And you can pray with genuine confidence. Look what the Bible says in verses 26 and 27.
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In the same way, the Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, also helps our weakness. Notice this now, Paul does not say that the Spirit of God takes away our weakness. He doesn't. He doesn't take away our weakness.
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"For we do not know how to pray as we should,
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but the Spirit, the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
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Hey, there are times when I just don't know how to pray in the will of God. There have been times when I've had loved ones and church members,
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and they're suffering with a broken body, cancer, and it's just eating them alive. And I don't know whether to pray for God to heal them or for God to take them to heaven.
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That's when the Holy Spirit helps us, and the Holy Spirit groans within us with groans that cannot be heard.
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Listen, the Holy Spirit always helps us to pray within the framework of God's will, always 100% of the time.
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Hey, look, it's easy to become discouraged in our praying,
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especially living in a broken world.
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Paul does not say that the Spirit takes away our weakness. The Spirit comes to help us to know how to pray and what to pray. He preserves and enlarges our hope and gives us the aid we need to endure through times of suffering.
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The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be heard according to the will of God, Paul says.
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If you're a born again believer in this room, listen to me very carefully.
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You have two prayer partners that are the best prayer partners you could ever have.
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Number one, you have the Holy Spirit of God
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in the theater of your own heart who prays for you. Is that not me?
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But you also have the Lord Jesus Christ from the throne of heaven who prays for you.
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I can't think of two better prayer partners in all of creation than the Holy Spirit of God and the Son of God. Look at Romans 8.34, just a moment.
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Verse 33, verse 33, "Who will bring a charge against God's leg? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus." Look at this. Christ Jesus is He who died. Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
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Man.
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Let me tell you, Jesus has set us up to win in a broken world.
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You don't have to fail. You can be successful as a born again believer living in a broken world. Now, if you're in this room today or you're watching live stream and you've never repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus, I want you to understand that you can't say the best is yet to come.
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You can't because for you as an unbeliever,
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the best is what you have right now.
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Living your life in a broken world, dealing with suffering without the hope of glory.
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That's why in just a moment I'm going to invite you to repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.
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I'm going to invite you to become a child of God,
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to become a joint heir with God and a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to invite you to experience how wonderful it is to have Jesus praying for you and the Holy Spirit praying for you
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as you live out your life in a broken world.
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Let me ask you, are you suffering today?
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Some of you walked into this church today and your heart is so heavy because you're going through some tough stuff.
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I want you to know that even in the midst of the tough stuff you're going through, you can pray with genuine confidence.
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Now, it's hard now, but...
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Now, Paul does not minimize our suffering. I said that earlier, this text is not about minimizing your suffering.
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Paul is not saying it here, "Suck it up, buttercup." That's not what he's saying.
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He's saying suffering is very real and it's painful.
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But he said when you take your suffering and you compare it to the glory that Christ has promised you as a born again believer, there is no comparison whatsoever.
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So the three keys that you have to make sure that you engage as you live out your life in a broken world, number one, develop the right perspective.
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Number two, look forward to redemption. Let me ask you, do you have the right perspective?
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Have you made that calculation in your own life? You're going through a difficult time. How does that compare with what Jesus has promised you in the future?
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Paul said there's no comparison.
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Now, listen, you have to decide that you have to do that calculation yourself.
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And then you look forward to redemption.
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Listen, this world is a broken world.
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Here's what I don't understand.
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I do not understand why born again believers
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seem to be more interested in living in a broken world than going to heaven and living with Jesus. I don't understand it.
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Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm just dumb. I don't know. But I look forward to being with Jesus. I look forward to the glory of His kingdom. I look forward to seeing Him face to face. I look forward to standing before Jesus with my hands raised, singing, "Worthy is the Lamb." I look forward to that.
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I hope and pray you look forward to it too.
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And then thirdly, pray with genuine confidence.
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The Holy Spirit will help you to learn how to pray.
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The Holy Spirit will help you to pray in the will of God.
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Now, some of you in this room, the Holy Spirit,
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it's dealing with your heart, convicting you of sin, righteousness, and judgment because you're not a believer.
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Oh, how I pray.
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And I pray for I walked out here today.
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Is there one single person in this church that's not a believer,
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that you'll come under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit as He draws you to Jesus?
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And I pray that you would repent of your sin and place your faith in Christ today.
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I'm going to ask our worship team to come. I'm going to ask our staff to come.
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And this is your opportunity to give your heart to Christ if you're not a believer. It's your opportunity as a believer if you're in this room and you're suffering, you're going through difficult stuff and you want somebody to pray for you. You've got the Holy Spirit to pray for you. You've got Jesus praying for you. But I want you to know that one of our staff members would love to come and just put his hand on your shoulder and pray over you. You just come and we'll pray for you. You come to the altar, bow the knee, and ask the Lord to help you to engage these three keys in your life that we've talked about today about how to live in a broken world.
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